African mahogany bark — Khaya senegalensis — is the great West African bitter tonic: a fiercely bitter antimalarial and digestive medicine used for fever, worms, blood sugar, and as the backbone of West African 'bitters.'
African mahogany bark is the living ancestor of the bitters and tonic traditions that survived into Black Southern foodways — the bitter spring tonics and digestive bitters of the rural South echo this Sahelian medicine, and its blood-sugar action speaks to a community in a diabetes crisis.
Khaya senegalensis bark is loaded with bitter limonoids that drive documented antimalarial (antiplasmodial), antihyperglycemic, anthelmintic (deworming), and anti-inflammatory activity — explaining its central role as a West African fever and blood-sugar tonic. As a classic bitter, it stimulates digestion, bile flow, and appetite, and it is a key ingredient in the African 'bitters' tradition used for malaria prevention, gut health, and metabolic balance. Its antihyperglycemic action is directly relevant to the diabetes epidemic in Black Americans.
Bark is decocted into a deeply bitter tea, or soaked in water or alcohol to make 'bitters' taken in small amounts before meals. Traditional doses are small given intensity.
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